Fred French Revisited--and not all of it complimentary....

Here we have memorial plaque for the French Building....French has his name on a lot of buildings around Grand Central, particularly some apartment buildings on Park Avenue...

This plaque was put in the sidewalk by the Kalikow corporation...a real estate business run by Peter Kalikow that was in the news a lot some years ago, often wrapped in bitter controversy about his attempts to evict tenants from rent controlled buildings etc.

I believe I have written about  Frederick French before...just a brief review: ( from Wikipedia)

He was born in Manhattan, New York City on October 14, 1883 and attended the Horace Mann School.^[1] He built Tudor City, a housing development on Manhattan's East Side, for the rising middle class in the 1920s.^[2] He also developed Knickerbocker Village, middleclass housing on the Lower East Side between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. His original intention for the project was to build housing for "junior Wall Street executives".^[3] His Fred F. French Building is a well-known skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Midtown.
French and his company served as the developer and landlord of Knickerbocker Village, important in the history of tenant rights. When the tenants were to take possession of their apartments, they found conditions to be unlivable.^[4] Facilities were either unfinished or poorly equipped, including non-working elevators and inoperable laundry rooms.^[5] The tenants formed the Knickerbocker Village Tenants Association and started a strike, withholding their rent checks until their grievances were dealt with. The conflict that arose from the tenants' dissatisfaction led to New York City's rent control laws. He died on August 30, 1936 in Pawling, New York of a heart attack.^[6][7]

What is Khojaly?

This is some new propaganda poster about some place called Khojaly...let me see if I can find something on the internet about it....here we go:

World must stop ignoring Khojaly massacre
by Ceyhun Osmanlı*

0

26 February 2012, Sunday / ,

Twenty years ago today, Azerbaijanis witnessed one of the most brutal events in their history when the town of Khojaly in Azerbaijan, with its 7,000 population, came under indiscriminate attack by Armenians.

The inhabitants were generally people who were deported en masse from Armenia in the course of the war between 1988 and 1990.
In 1992, on the night of Feb. 25-26 the Armenian Army attacked the town. Innocent, unarmed people who couldn’t understand what they were facing fled for their lives. However, all entrance and exit points of the town were closed. On that night, Armenian soldiers bloodthirstily shot everybody -- including women, children and the elderly.
The official death toll of the massacre is at least 613 -- 106 were women and 63 were children; 160 residents of the town are still missing and 76 are crippled. Eight families were completely exterminated, and 154 children became orphans. It was only possible to bury the bodies of 335 murdered people. The feet of 200 Khojaly residents, who were trying to escape from the hail of bullets, froze and became gangrenous, while 1257 residents of the town -- captives and prisoners -- were tortured by Armenian soldiers.
The people who committed this savagery have gone unpunished as the world has ignored this massacre.

Hooray for Hollywood....women's shoes

Just saw TV show about Oscars saying how fashion is focusing on women's shoes these days...so objects like these from Ferragamo as shown are now IMPORTANT.

Just an internet note on Ferragamo: (Wikipedia)

Salvatore Ferragamo (June 5, 1898 – August 7, 1960) was a Florentine and Italian shoe designer. He worked with many Hollywood stars in the 1920s, before returning to Italy to found the eponymous company making unique hand-made footwear. His scientific and creative approach to shoes spawned many innovations such as the wedge heel and cage heel. Film stars and celebrities continue to patronize his company, which has evolved into a luxury goods empire spanning the world.

Vitacost involved in all kinds of scams

WANT TO KNOW A COMPANY TO AVOID/ VITACOST.
I have been getting unwanted "targeted advertising" from this outfit..sent them an email to stop.
It is actually largely the fault of GOOGLE.

Vitacost is listed on the internet as having been involved in all kinds of scams, as well as just being a lousy company-- see

http://www.my3cents.com/reviews/vitacost

Library Way, Langston Hughes plaque in sidewalk

Plaque in Library Way on 41st Street in Manhattan, just East of the Main Public Library...all these plaques set in the sidewalk with quotes from famous authors.

From the internet:

Few Manhattan pedestrians, whether locals or tourists, are aware that this two-block stretch - starting in the shadows of Grand Central Station and ending across the street from Patience and Fortitude, the lions guarding the entrance to the majestic main branch of the New York Public Library, contains a collection of ninety-six bronze plaques, quoting forty-five writers, imbedded in the sidewalk. The project - the brainchild of the Grand Central Partnership, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to revitalizing the midtown area - was started in the early 1990s and finally reached completion in May 2004, when it was dedicated by Mayor Bloomberg. Each one - selected from the works of an eclectic group that includes Marcus Aurelius, E.B. White, Willa Cather, and Tom Stoppard - includes artwork inspired by the text. Anyone intent on studying these for more than a brief moment is advised to do so on a Sunday, when foot traffic is minimal. To attempt to do so midweek will no doubt leave you trampled by impatient office workers frantic to eat and run errands during lunch hour or anxious to catch the train home.

Manhattan...all that brickwork!

Manhattan has a fair number of buildings that seem to be mostly concrete, glass and steel but this is still a place made up essentially of zillions of bricks used as the "curtain wall" on most buildings...
Remember when I was in  Prague I was struck by how the central part of town there is almost all stonework exteriors...true of a lot of European cities I suppose.

This is just part of an online description of the wonderful Chrysler building ( not all that far from where this photo was taken)

77 floors, 319.5m (1048 feet) high, 29961 tons of steel, 3,826,000 bricks, near 5000 windows. Cost: $ 20,000,000
The building is clad in white brick and dark gray brickwork is used as horizontal decoration to enhance the window rows. The eccentric crescent-shaped steps of the spire (spire scaffolding) were made of stainless steel (or rather, similar nirosta chrome-nickel steel) as a stylized sunburst motif, and underneath it steel gargoyles, depicting American eagles (image), stare over the city. Sculptures modeled after Chrysler automobile radiator caps (image) decorate the lower setbacks, along with ornaments of car wheels. 

By the way,  that cost of $20 million is from back in 1928-30....hard to imagine how much it would take to replicate the Chrysler building today!

Blame it on the Pedestrians

Signage around Midtown Tunnel entrance has changed for what I feel is the worse...used to be all about telling traffic to yield to pedestrians, and they had real cops out to direct traffic who got respect from drivers.

Now, signs seem to be all about telling pedestrians to WATCH OUT and underpaid traffic cops ( the kind without guns) do a hit-or-miss job of traffic control.

Skyscraper Apartments in Midtown

Every once in a while, you suddenly get struck by the verticality of the upper part of Murray Hill area near 42nd Street....and what a mild day it was today, sunny and so Spring-like. Cheered me up...

Signs of Spring...in mid Feburary

IT has been such a mild winter that the ornamental kale put in for temporary looks all over Murray Hill is  blooming away...

Likewise, tulip shoots in median strip of Park Avenue are sprouting up very early this year.

Little touch of real winter ( a real possibility yet) would whammy everything...,however, Park Avenue Association that takes care of the median strips would just replace them with other flowers...funny how they have so much money for things like this in the middle of a recession. But that's Manhattan for you.

St. Valentine's Day is coming....

St. Valentine's Day is coming soon now ( on the 14th--next Tuesday).....all sorts of goods in stores for the event. This little shop looked very cheerful....

Dig We Must

Wherever you are in Midtown, they are tearing up a street to replace a pipe or something not all that far away...guess this guy was happy he was not doing it in the snowstorm that never materialized.

Snowstorm doesn't materialize- Februrary 11 2012 is not all that bad

There was supposed to be up to 3 inches of snow today...instead, snow flurries went through early and melted., leaving St. Vartan's Park open for young men to play touch football. They act like it is Spring like ( it was really fairly cold)....guess the vigorous exercise kept them warm.

Plethora of Historic Designations in Manhattan

The Griffon Apartment building on Park Avenue in Murray Hill has an Historic Designation...like so many other places around the area.

Let me see what internet has on the Griffon:(This is from what is basically a real estate listing...some tantalizing bits in here though if you keep reading)

PRICING INFORMATION FOR The Griffon
Three Bedrooms from $1,950,000 (updated January 23, 2012)
One Bedroom from $995,000 (updated January 26, 2012)

• View Apartments for Sale
• Schedule an Appointment

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT The Griffon
Contact us about buying or selling an apartment in The Griffon .
Email Us OR Call (212) 755-5544

---

The Griffon - 77 Park Avenue: CARTER'S REVIEW

This 127-unit condominium building was designed by Margon & Glaser and completed in 1925. Its apartments have fireplaces and the building has an elevator person and a roof garden. One of the closest residential buildings to Grand Central Terminal, this Murray Hill property achieved some notoriety in 1936 when Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey accused one of its residents, Mrs. Abraham Z. Schiebel, alias Mary Briggs, of having violated the Mann Act by transporting "Boots" Carter from Pittsburgh for immoral purposes and running a place of prostitution in her apartment in the building.
"Names of customers found in her records included the owner of a major league baseball team, a bank president, and some major business executives," according to James Trager in his book, "Park Avenue, Street of Dreams," 1990, Atheneum. Mrs. Schiebel was sentenced to four years in prison ...

Finally, Snow and a More Recognizable January....

This has been an unusually mild winter for New York City, with scant snow ever making it to the ground...I can only remember one snowfall so far for the whole season, in fact...

That may be changing now...the first real January snowstorm started out promisingly...but, I have to admit, it petered out into drizzle and what the weather forecasters call a "wintry mix"-- and the cleared up and was just very cold ( but hardly anything unheard of for this time of year).

New York is not alone in this...most of the middle of the country has seen a milder winter with a lot less snow...

The main thing about this snowfall was how really treacherous it became underfoot....I was wearing thick soled winter boots designed to provide you with maximum traction and I still had to watch my step.

I am used to long walks on pretty much a daily basis, and only got to walk a moderate amount today...it was just too dangerous feeling. Saw couples holding hands to help each other keep their balance...and two young Asian women who left their apartment building in three inch heels and soon realized their mistake ( they last I saw, I think they were desperately trying to get a cab).

Well, the forecast is just for cold weather tomorrow and then another mild spell...guess REAL winter will not get here until February.

I feel convinced it will come, though...just a matter of the law of averages. Even if global warming is being documented more and more ( some glacier in Chile is melting at an alarming rate--right of that movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

Madison Avenue in lower East 30's--one carpet store after another

Historically, stores in the same business cluster in same areas in Manhattan ( particularly the Garment District....which used to spill outwards in all directions for blocks and blocks and with little extensions for certainly specialties appearing a long way from the center of the District).

Going back about 40 years, I can remember how there were all these stores on the Bowery which specialized in kitchen fixtures, like sinks....and some in kitchenwares....also was then the home of the old, old Sammy's Bowery Follies, a big barn of a place which tried to carry on traditions that went back to the 1890's ( it was really something of a tourist trap but fascinating).

Today neighborhood down there is pretty much gentrified...would not be surprised if office buildings with carpet showrooms did not some day get turned into condo buildings..but not in this economy.

Aerial Tramway to Roosevelt Island....

While there is a subway station on Roosevelt Island, many people prefer the aerial tramway.

This posting seems silly and incomplete without a picture of the tram car itself...have waited around forever and tram car never appeared ( or saw it speed by when I was not ready with camera).

Here is a link to a YouTube posting on the aerial tramway...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0vKE2kcRKA

Watching this will give you an appreciation of the whole operation.

Designer Glasses

Designer glasses, if my memory serves me right, started to come in in the early 1970's with the advent of "aviator frames" and the increased popularity of gold rimmed glasses.... ( I wear gold rimmed retro aviator type frames now, as do tons of other men....in fact, found myself on a subway car a couple of months ago and realized that there were--Good Lord-- half a dozen older men, all of us with similar physiques, and ALL wearing gold rimmed aviator style frames! Makes you realize again that no matter how individual you think your choices are, there are loads of other people who will make the same or a similar choice! Same goes for "new ideas" in the Arts, Politics,  etc. ( which often turn out to have precedents and are not as new as they may seem to the people who come up with them).

But I digress-- woman used to hate to wear glasses especially ( --there was the famous Dorothy Parker line, "men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses"--) though growing boys sure did not like being called " four eyes" ( I did not wear glasses until I was over 16 and suffering all kinds of symptoms that turned out to be part of the thyroid cancer I was suffering from)..

Seems today people like Tina Fey and others in show biz have led the way in making wearing glasses a  kind of "look" that more people enjoy.

Of course, contact lenses now exist that will even correct for stigmatism and then there is the extreme measure of laser surgery ( a woman Spanish professor of mine at City Tech some years back had her eyes "done" and I remember she had quite a few difficulties and adjustments to make once the procedure had been completed...it is not for everybody, and some of its early adherents now question whether it is really a good idea).

Finally, let me see if there is anything of value on the internet about Designer Glasses:

(Here I had to delete a bit of the history of glasses because of technical difficulties...will just take a bit from this really interesting website I found)

	Though roughly made, early spectacles were full of charm and rapidly became a symbol of wisdom and learning. Later glasses quickly became more technically sophisticated. One of the most important industries, the German spectacles industry, was formulated in 1535 with the issuance of regulations of the Nuremberg spectacle makers’ guild. In London in 1629, King Charles I granted a charter incorporating the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers. Unfortunately all of their earliest records were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 except for that charter. During most of the 17th century, Germany remained the center of spectacle making. Germans made the finest frames while the Italians made the highest quality lenses. The early lenses were still cloudy until manufacturing developed and flint was added to make the glass clearer. Genuine, original pre-1700 spectacles are exceedingly rare today and are highly treasured by museums and collectors alike.

Midtown Manhattan as a discount center....e.g., for electronics

For years and years, tourists have shopped in Midtown Manhattan, looking for bargains for all kinds of goods...especially such items as digital cameras ( unless they are Asian, who are already well equipped that way).

Apropos of nothing, just heard a broadcast on NPR about the horrible conditions some Chinese workers suffer under....one woman was allowed to join a union,(to her surprise), but when she had a complaint she was immediately fired-- and, she discovered, put on this huge "Blacklist" that the Chinese companies share with each other to make sure they never hire anybody who may be a potential "troublemaker."

There was also one old Chinese man who had had his hand deformed working in a factory that produced ipads for Apple. The reporter who spoke to him happened to have one and showed it to him...he said the old man's eyes lit up when he saw it turned on...he had never seen one in operation!!

The last American electronics firm to hold out at all from the Asian onslaught was, I believe, Motorola...think some Asian company owns that name now.

Just a little something from the internet about discount stores in Manhattan--

Bill would bag phony-purse buyers

By JOHN DOYLE

Last Updated: 11:05 AM, April 26, 2011

Posted: 12:46 AM, April 26, 2011

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More Print

EXCLUSIVE

Pretty soon, it could be more than just the fashion police who have a problem with your shoddy knockoff bag, like this bogus Louis Vuitton.
Buyers could face a year in jail or a $,1000 fine under a proposed bill by a city councilwoman fed up with cheapskate tourists and Big Apple residents flooding her district in search of fake designer merchandise.
"We don't want to be known as the place to come to get counterfeit goods," said Councilwoman Margaret Chin, whose Chinatown district is ground zero for counterfeiters.
Under Chin's bill, which is being introduced Thursday, shoppers caught buying any counterfeit product could be jailed or slapped with a fine of $1,000 -- a little less than the price of Marc Jacobs' frequently copied Baroque Quilting Mini Stam bag, which retails for $1,250.

"It's a very big problem," Chin said of the counterfeit market. "People are still coming, and the industry is growing, and we have to stop the demand. We need people to know that they are feeding this demand."

(English Speaking Union offices in Murray Hill

Among the many consulate, organizations and associations in Murray Hill is the English Speaking Union...

It was set up to foster relations between English speaking people. They don't speak about it on their website, but I am convinced it attracts people who have an interest in maintaining the "Special Relationship" between the U.S. and the U.K.

Here is just something from the internet (wikipedia):

he English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an international educational charity which was founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918. The ESU aims to "bring(s) together and empower(s) people of different languages and cultures," by building skills and confidence in communication, such that individuals realize their potential^[1]. With almost 40 branches in the United Kingdom and over 50 international branches in countries around the world, the ESU promotes a variety of activities such as debating, public speaking and student exchange programmes, runs conferences and seminars, and offers scholarships, to encourage the effective use of the English language around the globe.
The mission statement of the English-Speaking Union (as stated on its website) is to:

• Provide a forum for international friendship through the support of the worldwide network of ESUs and the provision of secretariat facilities for the International Council at the ESU's headquarters at Dartmouth House, London;
• Facilitate and assist the establishment and recognition of ESUs worldwide;
• Focus on key current affairs issues through regular international conferences, seminars and taff and voluntary helpers;
• Work in close and innovative partnership with its corporate members and sponsors.

 

New Year's Eve- William Carlos Williams citation

Another great plaque from the Library Way in Midtown...very mild New Year's Eve, by the way, saw young men playing basketball in St. Vartan's Park in summer sportswear...

Note on Williams from internet from Poets' Blog site:

William Carlos Williams

In 1883, William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey. He began writing poetry while a student at Horace Mann High School, at which time he made the decision to become both a writer and a doctor. He received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania, where he met and befriended Ezra Pound.
Pound became a great influence on his writing, and in 1913 arranged for the London publication of Williams's second collection, The Tempers. Returning to Rutherford, where he sustained his medical practice throughout his life, Williams began publishing in small magazines and embarked on a prolific career as a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright.
Following Pound, he was one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement, though as time went on, he began to increasingly disagree with the values put forth in the work of Pound and especially Eliot, who he felt were too attached to European culture and traditions. Continuing to experiment with new techniques of meter and lineation, Williams sought to invent an entirely fresh—and singularly American—poetic, whose subject matter was centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people.
His influence as a poet spread slowly during the twenties and thirties, overshadowed, he felt, by the immense popularity of Eliot's "The Waste Land"; however, his work received increasing attention in the 1950s and 1960s as younger poets, including Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, were impressed by the accessibility of his language and his openness as a mentor. His major works include Kora in Hell (1920), Spring and All (1923), Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962), the five-volume epic Paterson (1963, 1992), and Imaginations (1970).
Williams's health began to decline after a heart attack in 1948 and a series of strokes, but he continued writing up until his death in New Jersey in 1963.

Henry George School of Social Science...121 East 30th Street

Wondered how I had missed this place all the times I have walked this block on East 30th Street....it may be a relatively new place.

Based on the ideas of Social Thinker Henry George...it offers courses and seminars, (most of them free it seems if not all of them)-- to "Explain basic economic and social science principles."

Here is a lift from their website about upcoming free forums

Friday Evening Forums

All forums are free and open to the public, and begin at 6:30 pm.

Empty Apartment Buildings in NYC

January 13th, with Mr. Billy Fitzgerald
New Yorkers see them all the time: new apartment buildings, the entrance locked, without a single resident. Why are these buildings empty while apartment rents increase? Join us as we investigate ways to make housing affordable for all.

The Economy on Trial

January 20th, with Dr. Nibaldo Aguilera
The economic elite are indicted as American workers and studnets confront corporate greed and irresponsible governments. Why confront Wall Street? What public spaces should be "occupied"? What is the way forward?

Poverty and Urban Blight

January 27th, with Mr. Joshua Vincent
Overviews from some of America's poorest cities will pinpoint patterns of land ownership as factors in disinvestment and capital flight, Demographic and locational data are synthesized to illustrate where reforms are needed.

Land Value Taxation in the U.S.

February 3rd, with Mr. Andrew Mazzone
Could communities in the United States pay for public services and infrastructure with user fees on natural resources? This simulation of Georgist methods will reveal the value of monopolies of land and other natural opportunities.

Economics of Health Care

February 10th, with Dr. Demetrios Karides
Of the developed countries, the United States spends the highest amount per person on health care, yet has millions of people without medical insurance. Where does this money go? What is the relationship between high cost and high-quality patient care? Dr. Karides will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the American system and suggest ways to get better care at lower cost.

---

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Spooky Doorway

Something about this SPC Doorway strikes me as so spooky...let me see if I can find out if there is any clue what SPC is on internet...

No, all it wants to give me for SPC is St. Paul's Chapel and that certainly isn't it.

WAIT,  someone has just informed me that is a security company...that makes sense, it has the eerie watchful look of that ( once did some work for a security agency whose logo was a large eye-- reminded me both of the old CBS eye and also of Orwell's "1984") ( By the way, son of founder of the company, who was a college graduate, had no idea of what I was talking about when I told him of the Orwell idea-- he had never heard of "1984" ( this happened about 1986, as I remember).... as I was to find out later, and evidenced all the time by such humorous bits as Jay Leno's "Jaywalking," there are all sorts of "educated" people in our society now who are clueless about all sorts of cultural references everyone who was educated used to take for granted-- in fact, many of them do not know the simplest facts about, say, American history ( Michele Bachmann being a glaring example).

New Bus Service...fooey

City bus lines in some cases have done changeover to new system which is a pain..called "Select Service'"--have to buy pass at machine at bus stop with Metrocard. Bug fine if they catch you boarding without the pass!

I don't think this is an improvement on the old bus service at all..

Let us see if there is something on the internet

Most people seem on the whole to approve of the service but one review notes some drawbacks:

Bus bunching proved to be the biggest complaint, causing waits of up to 20 minutes at times and waits of less than one minute at others.
Many times it was local M15 buses blocking the way for the faster SBS. Still, with fewer stops and a (mostly) respected dedicated lane, it was a faster bus trip up and down the east side than I’ve had before. Half an hour each—less time than it took me to write this, which I started at about 50th street on my cell phone next to confused passengers still wondering what to do with the paper receipt they were told to keep as proof of sidewalk payment. One person suggested there be recycling bins for the new paper waste.

Security on West 34th Street

A lot of money changes hands over on 34th Street near 7th Avenue, and security for it is of course fairly tight...haven't seen the latest crime stats yet about robberies etc. in Midtown...suspect there are more of them now with bad economy.

Another Branch of 2nd Avenue Deli- Uptown

Knew 2nd Avenue Deli had moved up to East Thirties in Manhattan...did not realize it had a place way uptown on First Avenue, too. They also have a clock with Hebrew characters.,..